Narrow fabric is presently packaged in a number of ways which include boxing by means of what is known as a festoona and by spooler upon the elongated spools upon which one often sees ribbon wound. A third means of packaging narrow fabrics includes blocking upon what is known as a narrow fabric blocker wherein the narrow fabric is wound about itself with selvages of the convolutions aligned about cardboard cores carried by a hub fixed to a mounting flange. The hub is driven from the power takeoff mechanism by suitable gearing or other power transmission means within a housing by a suitable motor.
In normal operations upon blockers, the fabric is doffed entirely manually by tugging at the sides of the package in an effort to dislodge the cardboard core upon which it is wound, from a hub on which the core is carried and restrained against rotation relative thereto, as by a pressed fit. This manual pulling action often results in the convolutions of the block sloughing off. A bearing has been used in the past to doff such packages, but such has not proved to be satisfactory due to the fact that the bearing is always by some means carried in sliding or other relatively rotatable engagement upon the drive mechanism during driving operation of the device. Manually operated means are normally employed for moving the opposed idler flange into package confining relationship for operation opposite the side of the package opposite the first mentioned hub carried flange.
Accordingly, it is an important object of this invention to provide a manually operable means for dislodging a block of narrow fabric for doffing from the blocker wherein the actuator mechanism is disengaged and there is no contact whatever as would cause wear between relatively rotating parts during a packaging operation.
Another important object of the invention is to provide power operated means for engaging a package positioning flange opposite the cardboard core upon which the block is formed.
The prior art includes United States Letters Pat. Nos. 4,007,884 and 4,138,072 which illustrate pushing members engaging the inboard end of a bobbin tube for doffing yarn packages from winders.